The Appalachian Voice
Daniela Berry
Lenoir, N.C. For 13-year-old Daniela Berry, the arrival of fall means it’s time to transition to cool-weather crops such as radishes and kale. But Daniela’s after-school gardening isn’t just for her own dinner table— she organizes her county’s 4-H Plant a Row for the Hungry, a community service group that encourages gardeners to share the…
Read MoreOlivia Stegall
Butler, Tenn. Since she was four years old, Olivia Stegall has been working to end mountaintop removal coal mining. Her first foray into advocacy was in 2006, when she traveled with her mother to Washington, D.C., to lobby members of Congress to end the practice. Now almost 10, Olivia has talked personally with dozens of…
Read MoreBen Stockdale
Columbus, N.C. When Ben Stockdale, an 18-year-old high school senior from Polk County, N.C., saw the low-flush toilet handles at Appalachian State University, he knew he had an opportunity that he couldn’t waste. In August 2011, Ben and Polk County High School’s student-led “Green Team” wanted to install the same low-flush toilet handles at their…
Read MoreChloe and Elijah Rose
Clay, W.Va. Chloe Rose, age eight, wants recycling bins on the streets of her town, and she wants the trash pickup at the newspaper her mother works at to include paper recycling. Those are big changes for a third-grader to tackle, but Chloe, a soon-to-be published author, plans to donate proceeds from the children’s book…
Read MoreVictory in Virginia ODEC Coal Plant Fight!
Victory in Virginia ODEC Coal Plant Fight! Members of the Wise Energy for Virginia Coalition rejoiced recently over news that plans for the state’s largest proposed coal-fired power plant were put on hold. Old Dominion Electric Cooperative, the third largest power utility in the Commonwealth, announced earlier this fall that it was suspending the permitting…
Read MoreOrganizational Round-Up
Showing Some Clean Water Love On October 18, shortly after we go to press, the Clean Water Act will turn 40 years old. In conjunction with that anniversary, our Red, White & Water team is putting together a report on the successes of the long-standing program, complete with personal stories of residents and communities who…
Read MoreBringing Polluters to Justice — One Court Case at a Time
By Eric Chance and Erin Savage On Oct 1., Appalachian Voices and a coalition of citizens’ groups reached a historic settlement in a Kentucky case involving some of the most far-reaching and astonishing violations of the Clean Water Act in its 40-year history. The agreement between the citizens’ groups, International Coal Group, Inc., and the…
Read MoreLetter to the Editor
Chicken Farms Fowl Water Quality in N.C. Dear Editor, I appreciate your special on water pollution in our region (Changing Currents, August/September 2012). There is a more serious problem, however. Just down the mountain and around the corner from your office in Boone, N.C., there is an ongoing crime being committed against man and nature.…
Read MoreUneven Ground: Examining Appalachian History Since 1945
By Matt Grimley Imagine two Appalachias: one of banjos, moonshine, and dilapidated log cabins; the other of people, their families, their rich history and unfulfilled futures. That dichotomy and how it is exploited is what University of Kentucky professor Ronald D. Eller writes about in “Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945.” Eller writes with lucidity and…
Read MoreHow the Rest of the World Needs to Help Educate the U.S.
By Rev. Pat Watkins Several years ago, volunteers from a United Methodist Church traveled to a small village in Kenya where they observed that the women of the village were walking, twice a day with buckets on their heads, to a river a mile away to get water for their families. Deciding this village could…
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